Self-Portrait

Whoo, oils are fun but tiring! I actually kinda know what i'm doing from using Corel Painter, but man I miss the eye-dropper tool! But seriously, this is great! I'm lovin it! Here is about 3 hours in:

Painting Class!

Well, I started a painting class last week! Real oil painting taught by Charles Walls! Never done an oil painting before. Last week we mostly talked about how mediums, paint and turpenoid worked. This week we actually painted! I have to say I am a little embarrassed by my first piece. It's incomplete right now, so I'll add an updated one next week, but the perspective is majorly off! I feel like a novice showing this, but it's my first oil painting, so I guess I can't complain too much. It was fun though.

It's so nice being able to use actual paints after a long day in front of the computer. It kind of frees you a little. I'm exhausted from a full day of painting, but in a good way. I'm also learning about color theory and how pigments mix. Corel has given me kind of an edge in that area, but the eye dropper tool is gone! I have to mix paints over and over, so I'm learning to not worry about making it perfect. Even the simple things, like walking away from your work every once in a while to see the big picture is alot like zooming out on the computer. When you stand away, the waves of color blend more before they reach your eyes. What once was red and yellow blends to orange when standing at a distance.

It's great having a teacher again. I missed it more than I thought. I'm full of questions the entire class and hope i'm not annoying Charles too much, but I want to learn as much as I can in the next four weeks before he's gone. Anyway, i'm done blabbing. Thank you Marc Holmes for inspiring me to get back to traditional painting. I have a reason to create when I get home again!

Comic Book Artist Interviews

To anyone who is interested, I just discovered an amazing site called SiDEBAR that does comic book artist interviews! It's amazing and strongly recommended!

As for me, sorry for the lack of posts lately. I am currently buying oil painting supplies for a Binders Workshop that I enrolled in. Expensive as hell! My hopes are to get some good work done over the next few months. I'm reassessing how I spend my time and making some changes in my life for the better. No time like the present to get some work done. I have some sketches that I have been working on. I'll try to post them later.

Hole in my Head

Did some good drawing today. My sister needed some illustrations for a site promoting one of her stories. Instead of posting the art, I'll just link you to her site. She did a much better job presenting the work than I did :-) Just go to 'The Players' link once you get to the site.

Hole in my Head

My Sister Loves Me!

My baby sister loves me so much! Getting better at these ink pens. No pencils! Woot!

Sketchy

I'm trying this new thing where I focus on the overall image instead of individual body parts. Duh, Eric. I'm also trying to improve my weakness…faces. Hands are next. I'm comin for you hands! This image is from The Nude Figure: A Visual Reference for the Artist by Mark Smith. Great book. Highly recommended. More to come soon!

Quick Update

Yeah, so haven't updated for a while. Sorry. I'm so lazy when it comes to scanning in my work and then posting it. Need to do it more often. Anyways, here is a quick doodle I did. Been trying to come up with some concepts for a game I am working on and this is one of my favorite sketches of the night. Need to give her a name. She shoots black holes out of her gun (hence the sun and crossbones :-D)

Life Studies

Went to the Bodies Exhibit here in the ATL with one of my coworkers. It was pretty cool and I got about three hours of drawing in. I also got some muscle studies in beforehand. Here are some of my better muscle sketches. I also did some studies from some of my art books. I'm not extremely happy with any of them. I need to focus more on letting shading become part of my drawing instead of an afterthought. I also need to work on my line quality. Hair should be more refined too, but I need to learn the best way to do that with pen and still have it darker than most of the shading. So much to do and so little time.

I'm trying to figure out the best way to draw when doing studies. My drawings never have as much of the flair as a sketch from my imagination, but imagination sketches are never accurate enough. I guess studies should remain studies though, even if the flair isn't really there. I need to do drawings that slowly add what I have learned from my studies, one thing at a time so it becomes embedded in my memory. I have noticed that my studies are alot more accurate scale-wise. Need to work on my faces. I'll try working some of what i've learned into my imagination sketches this week.

All sketches were done with ballpoint pen.

Happy Holidays!

Yeah, still have no idea what this really looks like, but I'm getting a color calibrator for Christmas! Hopefully my colors will jump a bit more in 2009!

Black Widow

Been a while. I haven't wanted to draw much digitally because of my color settings problem. I guess knowing that whatever colors you put down are incorrect kinda ruins the drawing experience. I also have the problem that my screen's color settings are different than my cintiq, so whenever I drag between the screens, I just get even more frustrated. Having a mac is also killing me because it's gamma is different than PCs. Everything looks washed out if I don't calibrate, but calibrating makes everything look blue, so I deal with the blue. Anyways, I've asked for a Huey Pro Color Calibrator for Christmas. I'd buy it myself, but the budget is tight right now.

Here is my latest. I started it a while ago and the color problem kept me from finishing it. Took about 4–5 hours. Kind of a quicky compared to some of my stuff. Sorry if the colors look like crap. I'll try to take a look when I get to work tomorrow. I need to do some more finished work. Maybe for New Years :-) Come on color calibrator!

RGB Brightness

Been getting used to the working world. I need some freelance work methinks. I miss painting. One thing I am getting better at because of my job is contrast, which is my weakness. Colors competing with each other in an all out battle on the canvas! I'm working on colors in general right now actually. Trying to use them to add to the painting instead of simply relying on a drawing. Two more days to the weekend! I'm going to try to go to the body exhibit even if I can't get anyone to go with me. I missed it last time and I'm not doing that again. A full day of drawing! Here is my latest that I thew together. Two hours:


Redone with new settings:


Damn color profiles are giving me problems. Adobe RGB(1998) is my default and is what everyone tells me to use, but it doesn't translate to web very well, so I have to convert to sRGB, which kills my colors. I have to take a screenshot and convert that instead. Such a pain. I'd just do sRGB if I could figure out how to set Painter to it. Ah well.

Edit: Yeah, I just got on my PC at work and I can barely see the hair at all. Looks like I'm going to have to do some color calibrations later.

Pyramid Head gets lonely

Halloween is upon us! I've been watching some scary movies and looked up some Silent Hill 2 stuff on YouTube. Pyramid Head is crazy! Here is a color study I did. Need to work on my contrast some more :-( RGB to CMYK always messes me up so my stuff is never contrasty enough (as I've learned from work). RGB is SO much easier. Damn printing…



If you don't get it, play SH2.

Boozer Doodle 10/7/08

Got back from Boozer Doodle. Had a good night actually. The sketches are really flowin. Tonight we had two belly dancers. Here are the sketches:

I wanna go to siggraph :-(

RabbitHoles 3D Motion Holograms: Gnomon Gallery, SIGGRAPH, and Pixologic / Gnomon Party from douglas johnson on Vimeo.

Technology is amazing.

Well, sorry I haven't updated in a while. Work is going well. Currently, I am drawing 6 hours a day and learning Flash for the other 2. Work is fun. Unfortunately, I cannot show off my work because it is all owned by the company, but I will try to get some of my own stuff done now that moving is coming to an end and I can start concentrating on me again :-). Hope everyone is doing well.

Progress

Well, I'm done with college and looking for work. Anyone need any commissions, let me know! Here is my latest. I did it for Conceptart.org's Creature of the Week (COW)


Grandosaurus Rex
(Ice Lizard King)

Grandosaurus is one of the last remaining ice dinosaurs. Located in northern snowy climates, this creature has learned and evolved to conserve energy by staying still and allowing snow to collect on its back. It then uses its incredible sense of smell to ambush anything passing by.

Bee Project

Well, been busy lately and will be busy for much longer. Here are some sketches that I am using as starters for my senior project: Character Design for a game about honey bees. Only one more month and I'll be done with this stuff!

Redo

Here is a redo of the devil one.

Uploaded two of my newest ones. More on the way! Getting better at Painter X!

Voldemort pics

Here are some of my Harry Potter pics. The smiling Voldy is more of a for fun one :-)

ME!

Messin in painter.